Book & Record Pairing

We love gritty and we love real at Curbside, so we’re sending some real, gritty work at you this week. We are pairing Jackie Lynn’s self-titled LP along with Elizabeth Ellen’s FAST MACHINE.

Elizabeth Ellen’s aptly titled short story collection, FAST MACHINE moves at one dominating speed. Her characters are real and relentless and bring the spirit of old west to new America. Roxane Gay writes, “The best thing about Ellen’s writing is that it has big brass balls. There is seemingly nothing she won’t write about but more than the fearlessness is how Ellen writes about anything.”

Jackie Lynn is the new project from Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr, released under the guise of a Tennessee native, transplanted to Chicago, where she runs a multi-million dollar drug trade from a car repair shop on the Southside. When the police raid her apartment, they find this album, which becomes their only lead to her whereabouts. Pitchfork claims “it’s music of many hues, and most of them tend toward darkness.”

So there you have it. We’re getting real and we’re getting bleak, without getting really bleak.